A Thousand Splendid Suns

"One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her -walls."

She would not miss him as she did now, when the ache of his absence was her unremitting companion-like the phantom pain of an amputee.

she was furious with him for abandoning her, Tariq, who was like an extension of her, whose shadow sprung beside hers in every memory.

"You know."

"Know what?"

"That I only have eyes for you."

A man’s heart is a wretched, wretched thing, Mariam. It isn’t like a mother’s womb. It won’t bleed, it won’t stretch to make room for you

Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman

Laila lay there and listened, wishing Mammy would notice thatshe, Laila, hadn't becomeshaheed, that she was alive, here, in bed with her, that she had hopes and a future. But Laila knew that her future was no match for her brothers' past. They had overshadowed her in life. They would obliterate her in death. Mammy was now the curator of their lives' museum and she, Laila, a mere visitor. A receptacle for their myths. Theparchment on which Mammy meant to ink their legends.

Keep him away from me." That was the only time Mammy said anything all morning.

Babi ended up sitting alone on a folding chair in the hallway, looking desolate and small Then one of the women told him he was in the way there. He apologized and disappeared into his study.

Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.

Babi had wiped his eyeglasses clean with the hem of his shirt.To me, it's nonsense -and very dangerous nonsense at that-all this talk of I'm Tajik and you 're Pashiun and he's Hazara and she's Uzbek. We 're all Afghans, and that's all that should matter. But when one group rules over the others for so long…Theref s contempt. Rivalry. There is. There always has been.